Alley vs. Valley: What Happens When Companies Compete in a Stock Market for Health?

LifeVest is kicking off its Alley vs. The Valley “co-opetition,” pitting innovative companies and their employees against one another for better health and cash. Move your assets.

'When employees improve their health, their LifeVest health stock goes up and they earn cash,' explains LifeVest co-founder Mike Logsdon. 'When employees neglect their health, their stock goes down and their investment goes to those who have improved.'

Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) January 28, 2014

Invest in your health, and get paid to get healthy and stay healthy. That’s the overarching concept behind LifeVest Health, a start-up shaking up the wellness industry with their stock market for health.

In the U.S., healthcare has exploded into a $3 trillion crisis, which is largely a result of misaligned incentives. Through a stock market for health, LifeVest realigns incentives to motivate and reward leading a healthy lifestyle. Starting in late February, LifeVest is kicking off its Alley vs. The Valley “co-opetition,” pitting innovative companies and their employees against one another for better health and cash.

“Health insurance today is really ‘sickness insurance.’ Your insurance pays for when you are sick, and if you take the steps to improve or maintain health, what benefit do you get from your health insurance? None,” says CEO and LifeVest founder Jon Cooper. “LifeVest is just the opposite. It pays to improve your health. LifeVest allows you to literally invest in your health.”

How it works: Companies invest in their employees’ health. "When employees improve their health, their LifeVest health stock goes up and they earn cash,” explains LifeVest co-founder Mike Logsdon. “When employees neglect their health, their stock goes down and their investment goes to those who have improved.” Companies that perform well as a whole earn outsized returns. Their employees get healthier and earn greater financial incentives. Companies that do well will earn back their initial investment and beyond from those companies that performed poorly, while also pocketing serious bragging rights.

Going beyond the company, LifeVest encourages users and their friends to personally invest in their health. By having skin in the game, users are more likely to improve their health, and getting their friends involved helps increase the level of commitment and accountability.

Companies are now spending $521 per employee on wellness incentives. Yet, most companies are not even able to measure their returns. Discerning companies are growing increasingly skeptical of the unsubstantiated promises of returns from traditional wellness.

“By focusing on measurable and clinically robust health metrics, LifeVest is able to demonstrate how every dollar an employee earns is linked to a far larger reduction in overall cost,” says Brad Patterson, co-founder and chief science officer. By creating an actual marketplace for health improvement, LifeVest transforms health improvement from hypothetical future avoided costs into immediate and measurable financial returns.

“Creating an actual market for health is a huge paradigm shift,” says Bert Navarette, managing partner of Tigerlabs, an investor in LifeVest. “This approach dramatically transforms our ability to create and measure ROI from wellness, while laying the foundation for a massive change in how we think about and value health.”

Participate in the co-opetition: Innovative companies from across the country have enrolled in the Alley vs. the Valley to help LifeVest demonstrate this game-changing concept while motivating their employees to improve their health. Think your company has what it takes? Entry is still open to join. Contact help(at)LifeVestHealth(dot)com for a chance to enroll your company.

What is LifeVest? Recently named in Mashable’s top 5 health tech trends to watch in 2014, LifeVest is a health stock market that lets you invest in your health, literally. Your health stock rises and falls based on your actions, rewarding you and holding you accountable with real money for leading a healthy life.